God is still tops but angels rate well

By Jacqueline Maley

MOST Australians believe in God or a similar universal spirit, but a majority also believe in miracles, heaven, life after death and angels.

The surprising findings from an Age Nielsen poll show Australia is a credulous nation, willing to mix and match religious faith with belief in other phenomena.

Although we are widely considered a secular and largely atheistic people, nearly half the population believes in psychic powers such as extrasensory perception and 41 per cent believe in astrology.

The findings show women are much more likely to believe in God and other phenomena than men, with the exception of UFOs; while 34 per cent of Australians believe they exist, men are more likely to do so than women.

Australians are more religious than we might have thought - 68 per cent of us believe in God or a universal spirit, and 50 per cent say religion is important or very important in their lives.

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But atheists and agnostics also had a strong showing in the national survey of 1000 respondents, which was taken early this week.

Almost one in four Australians (24 per cent) do not believe in either God or a universal spirit, and 7 per cent are not sure or say they ''don't know''.

Women have more faith than men, with 56 per cent saying they believe in God and 13 per cent saying they believe in a universal spirit, compared with 43 per cent and 11 per cent of men, respectively. Most people with faith hold it strongly, with 88 per cent saying they were either absolutely or fairly certain in their belief.

Christianity was still the largest faith, with 64 per cent of believers nominating it as the religion they most identified with. The next biggest was Buddhism, at 2 per cent, followed by Hinduism and Islam, which each had 1 per cent of believers. Judaism accounted for less than half of 1 per cent of those who said they were believers.

Australians also place their faith in a range of other phenomena. For example, 63 per cent believe in miracles, and 53 per cent believe in life after death. Angels are also popular, with 51 per cent of respondents saying they believe in them, slightly more than the 49 per cent who hold faith in psychic powers like ESP.

Forty one per cent of people believe in astrology.

Some beliefs seem contradictory. While 56 per cent of people believe in heaven, only 38 per cent believe in hell, and belief in God is more popular than faith in the Devil, with only 37 per cent believing in Satan. Thirty-four per cent believe in UFOs and 22 per cent think witches exist.

The difference between the sexes is stark. Men (32 per cent) were almost twice as likely as women (17 per cent) to say they did not believe in God or a universal spirit, and women were far less likely than men to classify themselves as atheists - 12 per cent of women compared with 20 per cent of men.

The 50 per cent of the population classified as Christian were also asked about their specific beliefs in Jesus. Ninety-four per cent believed he was a real person who lived 2000 years ago. And although 91 per cent believed he was the son of God, only 72 per cent think the mother of Jesus Christ was a virgin.

Nearly a quarter of us believe the biblical account of human origins over the Darwinian account. Forty-two per cent of people believe in a wholly scientific explanation for the origins of life and 32 per cent believe in an evolutionary process ''guided by God''.

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Dr Philip Hughes, a senior research officer for the Christian Research Association, said it was not surprising that many Australians held contradictory views and believed in paranormal activity.

''A lot of people these days don't necessarily have the same sense of having to hold a coherent system, which was the case in the past,'' he said. ''People warm to a variety of beliefs and they may invoke a variety of beliefs at different times.''